GradAustralia surveyed students across 38 unis for their Top 100 Graduate Employers publication and awards ceremony. Only 56% of respondents agreed with the statement, “my course provides me with the skills necessary for the labour market.”
The view was shared across disciplines, with the exception of teaching, where 70% of students felt they had the necessary skills. All other degrees sat between 51 and 58%, with Humanities at the lowest end.
The ‘best and brightest’ students felt more confident that they had the skills for work, with 59% of Distinction and High Distinction GPA students agreeing with the statement compared with only 52% of Credit, Pass and Fail students.
The statistics suggest employers may benefit from working closely with universities to ensure that course programs are closely tailored to the skills they require on the job.
“With a rapidly evolving job landscape it’s so important that our graduates have the skills to solve the challenges of tomorrow”, says GradAustralia’s Director, Jeffrey Duncan. “Universities and employers both benefit from close collaboration to ensure our students are as confident and equipped to enter the labour market as they can be.”
KPMG are one of the Top 100 Graduate Employers making moves to engage students with the kind of real-world problems they will need to solve on the job.
"KPMG recognises that in addition to completing core academic studies, we need our graduates to develop specific soft skills that will be relevant to their role once commencing with us,” says Head of Talent Acquisition, Phil Rutherford.
“We provide opportunities for students in their final two years, through our Foundations and Vacationer Programs, with ‘on the job’ classroom and virtual technical training coupled with a solid balance of soft skill development which complements their academic studies and prepares them for their first career step with the firm.
We partner with universities to discuss our future talent and skills requirements and also deliver soft skill development opportunities on campus in areas such as effective networking, personal branding, presentation and interviewing skills.”